


Baby Teeth

by DawnsEternalLight



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman and Robin (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Batdad, Bonding, Father and Son, Gen, baby teeth, loosing baby teeth, tooth fairy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-21
Updated: 2016-07-21
Packaged: 2018-07-25 19:35:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7545313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DawnsEternalLight/pseuds/DawnsEternalLight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce notices that Damian has lost a tooth, and decides to play Tooth Fairy. Fluff pure and simple.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Baby Teeth

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks goes to Darnianwayne on Tumblr for her head cannon that inspired this fic. Thanks so much for letting me write something based on your incredible idea.

“Oww.”

Bruce wasn’t sure he’d heard right, had Damian just said ow? At breakfast? He looked up from the stack of paperwork he was trying to get through to glance at his son. Damian was giving his apple a look that seemed to be accusing the fruit of attacking him.

“Something wrong with your apple?” Bruce asked.

Damian ran his tongue over his tooth and frowned, “It’s nothing, just a loose tooth.”

Bruce perked up, Damian had a loose tooth? Why hadn’t he thought about that before? Somehow he’d just assumed Damian had already lost all his teeth. Bruce seemed to fall for Damian’s ‘I act older than I am’ routine far too often and as a result he always found himself either assuming too much or too little of his son.

This time, he’d apparently assumed too much, “You want me to pull it for you?”

Now that would be an experience. Briefly Bruce went over all the ways his own parents, and even Alfred had helped him pull his baby teeth. They’d tried everything from tying it to and slamming a door to -coincidentally- biting into a fresh apple.

Damian would probably take any of those options about as well as Bruce himself had, with excitement and a slight twinge of fear (who didn’t get that little adrenaline burst when they might have something literally yanked out of their mouth?)

Damian shook his head, “I’d rather let it fall out on its own. The last time someone helped me lose a tooth it wasn’t the most painless experience.”

That’s when Bruce noticed it, the gap in the front of Damian’s teeth, his son had already lost a tooth and he’d missed it. Had it happened sometime while Bruce hadn’t had his memories? While Damian was out working to redeem himself? Either way, he’d missed it like he’d missed so many other things in Damian’s life. Not that the first half was his fault, Talia had seen to that.

Not for the first, nor probably the last, time Bruce cursed his lack of attention to Talia’s movements over the years. If he’d just been a little more attentive to her, if he’d looked into her dealings a little closer, then maybe he’d have found out about his son earlier. Not that any of that mattered at this point, he was just happy to have Damian, have him back, have the chance to experience everything he could with his son. It wasn’t often a father got two chances to make sure his son grew up happy, and Bruce wasn’t planning on wasting this one.

“Well if you change your mind, you can always ask me. I’ll try to make it as painless as possible,” he said then added, “Did you do something to make Tim punch it out?”

Damian gave him a toothy smile, and Bruce couldn’t help but notice how much younger it made Damian look, no not younger, but his age. It reminded him that behind the bluster and act Damian was still just a kid.

“Nope, Maya did it.”

Bruce chuckled, “That’s a good way to lose your first tooth I guess. You don’t happen to still have it do you?” he wasn’t sure why he asked the question. Damian had probably never heard of the Tooth Fairy, and he wasn’t likely to believe a story Bruce told him about her now. Pity, he kind of wished he could have played the role at least once for Dami.  

Damian’s smile turned self-satisfied, “I kept it, as a reminder. Why?”

Maybe he had a chance at the whole tooth fairy thing, he’d just have to play his cards right. He shook his head, “Never mind. Your too old for it to work anyway.”

Bruce wondered how many children’s stories Damian had been told growing up. If he hazarded a guess it wouldn’t be many. Knowing Talia, her version of a bedtime or children’s story would be Sun Tzu’s Art of War, not the story of the Tooth Fairy.

“What am I too old for?”

It was just the opening Bruce had been looking for, “The Tooth Fairy,” he answered.

“Tt, the Tooth Fairy? Fairy’s don’t exist,” Damian crossed his arms.

Bruce couldn’t help the grin that slipped onto his face, “Oh, but this one is real,” he started, “She’s a good entity who visits children who’ve lost their teeth. In exchange for the tooth she leaves some kind of treasure. Sometimes it’s money, sometimes it’s something else.”

Damian’s nose scrunched up as he considered this, “How does she do it? Does she appear to children who’ve just lost a tooth or is there some kind of drop of place? If so I’ve never seen one.”

Bruce had to push down his excitement, Damian might not believe him, but he was at least taking his story with some measure of seriousness, “The child leaves their tooth under their pillow, and while they sleep the tooth is exchanged.”

Damian nodded, “That would make sense if the fairy didn’t want to be captured for all the money she carries. That is if this were true.”

Only Damian would jump to the assumption that a child would try and capture the tooth fairy for her money, he’d probably assume the same thing about Santa Clause if he didn’t already know about him.

“You don’t know if you don’t try.”

Damian scowled at him, “Don’t bait me, Father. Your story was nice, but I stick by my earlier statement, fairies don’t exist.”

Bruce leaned back, “If you say so, it’s just,” he shrugged.

Damian shifted towards him, “Just what?”

“You know that journal I keep in my office? The one that you wanted me to throw out because it was ‘so old’?”

“Yes?” the question was careful, guarded even, and Bruce was sure he was getting through to the kid.

“I got that from the tooth fairy, just after my parent’s died. She even left a note for me, why else do you think I’d keep it so long?” The story was true. Alfred had left both for Bruce, the journal was supposed to be a place where he could write all his feelings without reservation, and he’d used it for just that purpose for a while.

Damian’s face scrunched up again, and the tip of his tongue pressed out the way it did when he was concentrating on a problem or technical issue, “Perhaps it’s worth a try,” he nodded, “Yes, I believe testing it is the only way to see if this fairy exists or not.”

Bruce nodded, “A wise choice,” he turned back to his papers trying to keep his son from picking up on his excitement and ruining his quickly forming plans.

The next morning Bruce made sure to be at the breakfast table long before his son would be. He’d just started in on his second cup of coffee when the sound of hurried feet preceded Damian. The boy slid to a stop beside him, his socks making a swishing sound on the floor as he thrust a folded hundred at Bruce.

The man blinked at the bill, “What’s this?”

“This was left under my pillow last night. I thought I’d prepared everything to help me catch the tooth fairy, but she slipped past all my defenses. I must say, I’m impressed with her skill,” Damian gave Bruce a look that told him his son was still having none of the Tooth Fairy being real stuff, but that he appreciated the great efforts his father had gone to in order to proliferate the myth.  

He’d better be impressed, Bruce thought to himself. Damian had laid the most elaborate trap for the ‘tooth fairy’. His tooth had been attached to a wire that would sound an alarm if removed. Bruce had almost set it off more than once trying to disable the device while staying silent enough not to wake Damian.

“She is a professional,” Bruce agreed.

Damian slid into the chair beside him and regarded the bill, “This does seem like a lot. My online research yesterday told me that she usually leaves a quarter.”

“Maybe she wanted to make up for being so late with her gift?” Bruce suggested before taking a sip of his coffee.

“Morning guys, mind if I crash breakfast?” Dick walked in already carrying a bowl of cereal and took the seat next to Damian, he glanced at the bill in the boy’s hands, “Whatcha got there, Little D?”

“I had a visit from the tooth fairy last night,” Damian answered.

Dick glanced at Bruce who said, “Damian told me about how he lost a tooth in a fight yesterday,” he explained.

“The one Maya knocked out?” Dick grinned, “So did TF leave you anything good? One time I got this Hot Wheel car I wanted so badly, it was great.”

Damian showed him the bill and Dick cooed over it. Bruce just smiled at them as Dick relayed stories about trying to stay up to see the tooth fairy and Santa and the Easter Bunny. Damian grinning and giving his own Santa stories, apparently Talia had celebrated some form of Christmas.

As much of a surprise as it was to see Damian had lost a tooth, and was on the way to loosing another one Bruce was happy. His kid was growing up, and that was something he would be thankful for every day of his life. His son was growing up to be quite the young man, and Bruce couldn’t wait to see what happened next. Even if that did mean dealing with Damian as a teenager.

**Author's Note:**

> A quick explanation on the not just money from the TF thing, in my family my parent's used to put elaborate gifts under our pillows, like one time I got a full boxed tea set (crazy I know) so I was writing from experience. :p


End file.
